


Marks

by hesychasm (Jintian)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-09
Updated: 2007-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/pseuds/hesychasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean stopped them in Gillette, Wyoming, the first decent-sized town past the South Dakota border.</p><p>Set immediately after "Born Under a Bad Sign."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marks

  
Dean stopped them in Gillette, Wyoming, the first decent-sized town past the South Dakota border. He left Sam in a cheap motel just on the edge of town, a gray pile of slatted wood cupped beneath a big blue sky, and went hunting for what he needed.

Sewing needles, ink, bandages, rubbing alcohol. A bottle of Jim Beam. When he got back to the motel Sam was stretched out on his back on one of the ugly low beds, shoes still on. He was staring up at the ceiling and didn't even blink when Dean dropped the plastic shopping bag on his stomach and thunked the whiskey on the bedside table.

"Take off your shirt," Dean said, already unbuttoning his.

The bullet wound hurt like unholy fire, and his undershirt smelled like old blood and whatever had been in that water under Jo's bar. God, he needed a shower. And sleep, most of all. But first this. He grunted as he finally got his bad arm through the sleeve, feeling the flesh in his shoulder spring up fighting.

"Sam, come on."

Sam sat up. "What are you doing?"

Dean fished in his pocket for the bottle of painkillers Jo had given him, unscrewing the cap with one hand, dumping out a few pills next to the whiskey. "Take these. This is probably gonna hurt."

Sam rifled through the plastic bag. "What is all this—wait, are you serious? _Tattoos_?"

"Look, man, Bobby had the right idea with those charms, but we could lose those real easy. We need something more permanent. I figure a pentagram each will do the trick."

"No way am I letting you anywhere _near_ me with a needle in your hand. Why can't we just go to a tattoo parlor?"

"Demons can get in you while you're bleeding just as well as when you're sleeping. Safer if we do it ourselves. And I think we gotta consecrate them, too. You want to explain the Latin to some biker dude in a tattoo parlor?"

He saw Sam thinking of other arguments, the way Sam always did, but just as quickly dismissing them as he steeled his expression and nodded. Sam knew he was right, but more than that, Sam was scared. More scared even than Dean was, and he still hadn't explained exactly what he'd gotten out of the demon while it had been inside him. It would come out eventually, Dean knew, but not before Sam was done performing some exorcisms of his own.

"Okay," Dean said. "You first, baby bro. Where do you want it?"

He knelt on the floor next to Sam's bed, flipping through their father's journal for the page on consecrating symbols. The handwriting was bold and dark, all capital letters, written carefully on the stationery of a Motel Six in Searcy, Arkansas. He had no idea what kind of thing Dad had been hunting there, or when it had been—he'd never mentioned it, but it must have been a while ago. The paper was already yellowing, the ink changing color.

Ink faded, skin lost layers and regenerated. Tattoos were only skin deep. Well, if he had to redo Sammy's one day, so be it, and let it be twenty, thirty, forty or more years into the future.

Sam had rolled up the sleeve on his right arm, exposing the burn Bobby had put there on top of the binding scar. It looked like it'd be a mean bitch of a healing process, but Sam just said calmly, "Here. Draw it above this."

"Swab the area," Dean told him.

Clean alcohol scent drifted up between them, then Dean took a pen and drew a pentagram a few inches above the burn, equidistant between it and the crook of Sam's elbow, where his skin was uninterrupted by veins. When he was done he took the pen apart and fastened one of the sewing needles into the empty barrel. There was still a little holy water left in his flask; he mixed a few drops into the ink bottle, swirling the needle around in it.

Sam met his eyes. "You ever done this before?"

"Nope. But I've seen that show on The Learning Channel. How hard can it be?"

Sam gave him a look and reached for the whiskey. "Dean, if you fuck this up—"

"Shut up and read."

He bent to the task as Sam began reciting the Latin, circling his fingers around Sam's wrist to hold him in place, his other hand—thank God the demon hadn't shot him in the right shoulder or he'd be doing this left-handed—cradled in the bend of Sam's arm, gripping the pen-needle.

Sam's skin was thinner here than Dean had expected. He could see Sam's muscles twitching faintly. It would have to be a lot of dots rather than just re-tracing the pattern, to make sure the ink truly got beneath the skin. It was going to fucking hurt.

He got himself under control and stabbed the needle in, one-two-three times, trying not to hear Sam's hiss of pain.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Keep reading."

Sam's voice now was strained, but he kept on. Dean finished with the first straight line, repressing a wince each time blood welled up, just grabbing another alcohol-soaked swab to rub it away. He re-dipped the needle in the ink, but his grip on Sam's arm had gotten sweaty. He wiped his hand on his jeans, then his forehead for good measure, blinking moisture away from his eyes. Jesus. Jesus this was fucking hard.

Sam took another swig of whiskey in between verses, his throat clicking. "Here," he said hoarsely, and shoved the bottle at Dean.

It went down like a flame, but it cleared Dean's head well enough. He got started on the second line.

"We should have done this a long time ago," Sam said. "We should have seen this coming."

"Should have done a lot of things," Dean said.

"That demon...it was pissed, Dean. There _is_ a plan, I could sense it, not the details, but I knew the demon was angry, that it wanted no part of it. All it cared about was getting to you."

"Yeah, I got the memo. Don't even worry about it. That demon'll be sorry it ever fucked with the Winchester boys."

"Dean," Sam said quietly. "It's stronger now than it was before. And you can bet it'll come after us again. What if this isn't enough?"

He looked up, right into Sam's eyes and didn't give him one damn thing to argue with. "Then I'll deal with it. Keep reading."

*

Once Sam was bandaged up, they changed places so that Sam was kneeling, Dean sitting on the bed and leaning back a little on his good side. He'd downed a painkiller with another swallow of whiskey, over Sam's protest, but he seriously doubted Sam had any better prowess with a needle than he did. And he planned on going right to sleep as soon as Sam was finished: twelve hours of blissed out unconsciousness, and let any demons who tried to get in them tonight be damned.

"Right here," Dean said, pointing to his chest below the bullet wound.

"Over your heart?"

"Yep."

Sam took a breath, then drew the pattern on with a new pen, splaying his hand against Dean's breastbone for balance. His fingers were cold, shaking a little before they made contact. "I thought about getting a tattoo once."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It was just a thing. I was in San Francisco, first time freshman year. I guess that's when most college kids get theirs. You know, you're eighteen, in a big city, away from home for the first time...."

"Away from parents."

"Yeah." Sam got a clean needle, fastened it inside the pen, dipped it in holy water and ink.

"So what happened?"

"I thought better of it. I went to this place and looked at the designs, and it was all stuff like...hearts, daggers, skulls. But none of it meant anything to me."

"So basically you're saying you pussied out?"

"No, jerk. I just—wanted it to mean something. Most of those designs...I mean, _skulls_? Nobody in that place had ever seen a real skull before."

Dean nodded but didn't say anything, didn't have to.

Sam got the needle in position. "You ready?"

"No pranks," Dean warned. "If I look down and see you drawing a smiley face, so help me I will _beat_ your ass—"

Sam rolled his eyes and pierced him.

And yeah, it hurt, and yeah, it was all Dean could do to read the Latin in a steady voice without it trembling like a whiny punk bitch, because fucking hell, his brother was _stabbing_ him with a _needle_. But it didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as his shoulder, and all the while Sam's hand was pressing against his chest, big and warm and steady now, because once there was a job to do Sam always got right in there and did it, any whining and arguing forgotten once there were more important things in the picture. That was what their dad had left them, his words and his warnings and the ability to look their world in its face.

"Almost done," Sam murmured.

The pain was a dull blaze now. It stung every time Sam wiped away the blood, but then the alcohol cooled his skin and he remembered their mother doing the same when he'd tripped on the porch steps and scraped his palm. She had pursed her lips and blown on the skin, clearing away the pain with her cool breath and reassuring voice, and over her shoulder he could see Dad leaning in the doorway, holding Sammy.

Suddenly he felt his eyes prick in a horrible way and he blinked, looking down at Sam as he concentrated on the tattoo. There was a faint, silvery series of lines on Sam's cheek, slanting in parallel toward his mouth from where his hair fell over his ear. Invisible except when they were up this close—he hadn't even realized Sam had these scars, these leftovers from the first time that demon had put her mark on him.

His voice shivered a little but he didn't break his reading, for fear of what he might say or how he might say it, just kept going, letting Sam finish.

"Okay," Sam said a moment later. "Guess that's as good as it'll get."

Dean stood on shaky legs and walked over to the mirror. His pentagram was a little bigger than the one on Sam's arm, but it was all there: the circle, the star shape inside, each dark line touching where it was supposed to. The ink was there beneath the skin, and under that, ribs and heart and blood. "Not bad," he said.

"Not one of your craziest ideas, but it comes close. I just hope we don't come down with ink poisoning."

Dean met his eyes in the mirror. "I just hope it works."

"Yeah," Sam said, "yeah, me too."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and criticism welcome.


End file.
